The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has said that the Taliban has systematically restricted the religious freedom of citizens of Afghanistan, including those with differing interpretations of Islam.
The report, titled “Religious Freedom and Women’s Rights in Afghanistan,” was released on Wednesday. It highlighted the deterioration of religious freedom conditions in Afghanistan in the two years since the Taliban takeover of the country.
The report said that the Taliban’s enforcement of its strict interpretation of Sunni Islam has facilitated the deterioration of religious freedom conditions in the country. The restrictions have disproportionately impacted women and girls.
USCIRF stated that the Taliban, despite attempts to project a more moderate stance, has imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law that purposefully undermines the rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities.
“Following their rise to power, the Taliban claimed that women would have rights within the bounds of Islamic law. Since August 2021, however, over half of the de facto government’s 80 religious edicts and decrees directly enforce severe restrictions on women and girls, hampering their ability to live according to their own religious interpretation, including bans on education, employment, and freedom of movement.”
According to the report, the Taliban’s harsh enforcement of their narrow interpretation of Sunni Islam violates freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). “FoRB is defined under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the right to hold or not hold any faith or belief.”
The report said that the Taliban’s recent edicts and decrees directly violate this principle by enforcing religious views on all individuals regardless of their beliefs.
Additionally, according to the report, since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s Shi’a minority population has faced several attacks and targeted discrimination. The country’s Shi’a Hazara minority population, in particular, has been subject to attacks by both the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP).
“The September 2022 attack on the Kaaj Education Center in Kabul, for example, resulted in the death of 54 individuals and injured 114 more, most of whom were from the Hazara Shi’a community,” parts of the report reads.
Throughout 2023, the Taliban have restricted the teaching of Shi’a jurisprudence in some universities, and in February banned marriages between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims in Badakhshan province.
USCIRF urged U.S. government officials to incorporate discussion of the need for protections for freedom of religion or belief in dialogue with the Taliban and to publicly condemn the ongoing violations against minority populations.
“In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended the State Department designate Afghanistan as a country of particular concern, or CPC, for the de facto government’s engagement in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom,” the report said.
USCIRF further calls on the US Congress to expand the existing Priority 2 (P-2) designation granting U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) access for certain citizens of Afghanistan and their family members to religious minorities at extreme risk of religious persecution.
